Projects within one-half mile of a major transit stop, either existing or planned and defined as “a rail transit station, a ferry terminal served by either a bus or rail transit service, or the intersection of two or more major bus routes with a service interval frequency of 15 minutes or less during the morning and afternoon peak weekday commute periods, and offering weekend service,” would need to provide five (5) percent of its total units to very low income households, or ten (10) percent to lower income households, to qualify for “as of right” development.

For project’s outside a transit priority area, a level of affordability “equal to or greater than at least twenty (20) percent or more of the residential units restricted to and occupied by individuals whose income is eighty (80) percent or less of area median gross income,” would qualify.

And any required design review would have to be completed within ninety (90) days of being submitted to the City, “and shall not in any way inhibit, chill, or preclude” development.

Introduced as trailing legislation to California’s 2016-2017 budget, the bill would apply to all cities and counties, including charter cities, “because the Legislature finds that the lack of affordable housing is a matter of vital statewide importance.” But the bill will require both State Assembly and Senate approval and it’s likely to be met with local opposition and lobbying.

You just demonstrated why your professed initial enthusiasm for this disaster in the making is so misplaced. After granting supposed “of right” power, you see the need of architectural review of the qualifying proposal. And that’s just the start of what’s wrong with the Moonbeamer’s bright idea!

Looks like most of SF would be covered by this, including just about all of the Mission and Sunset (within half mile of light rail). It might get some folks in the Richmond to request less frequent bus service.

Sadly, though, this won’t create an affordable housing boom within walking distance of the Atherton Caltrain Station, as the law also says “The development is located on a site that is either immediately adjacent to parcels that are developed with urban uses or at least 75 percent of the perimeter of the site adjoins parcels that are developed with urban uses.”

Very bad legislation. Way too much freedom to developers and way too cheaply. Hopefully, it never gets out of committee.

Not saying change isn’t needed, but this goes ridiculously too far. Far better would be reform of CEQA law including stiff monetary consequences to be borne by plaintiffs if the court decides such an action brought has no merit.

The key is “code compliant” meaning projects that require zoning changes, plan amendments or variances from Planning Code (even for tiny variances like required bike parking) might not fall under the bill. Haven’t read the language yet though. As for affordable housing, I am sure the legislation sets a minimum, meaning a City can always require more (as SF already does and is attempting to increase).

Well, it’d preempt them when plans are code-conforming. That alone might make the regular planning process for variances more civil, as developers could threaten to just revise their plans to bypass approvals altogether. The ratio of affordable housing require seems unfortunate, but so many things about housing development seem unfortunate now that I don’t see this as being worse than status quo.

TBH I’m far, far more interested about the implications this should have near Caltrain and BART stations in, say, Santa Clara.

This is a blessing for the city. The SF planning département and the BOS are so obviously failing at their job of urban planning, this would inject much needed freedom, creativity and responsiveness to market conditions in the SF real estate market.

This is a terrible idea unless you think that maintaining some income diversity is unimportant and that people who make less than $100K per year but work in SF should have to commute from Modesto. Or WOULD commute that far.

BMR housing is not a panacea, but cutting the requirement back to only 5% and giving developers a green light to build absolutely anything they want would be a disaster for SF. (Would cities also be required to issue demolition permits for existing housing to be razed for these new projects? I shudder to think.)